I picked a small amount of local wild concord grapes and fox grapes.
I removed the good seeds from the stems, rinsed in a colander, mashed in a pot with my hands, then added a bunch of tap water and pasteurized it with the seeds in there. The specific gravity came out crazy low (like 1.7% alcohol potential). I added a bunch of honey and sugar which got the potential up to 15% while it was heating up. I cooled it quickly with the copper coil chiller, then squeezed the juice through a mesh strainer bag (although most of it would have just poured right through. It’s now in two growlers with airlocks and lots of string holding the stupid crappy rubber stopper in place.
10/17/21
The airlocks stopped bubbling. I transferred the wine to 3 small and 2 large swing top bottles. I tasted a bit - it was about like I’d expect. Nice red color, tasted like rough homemade wine. Not surprising since it’s mostly sugar and honey.
In the end the wine came out pretty good! Much better than I might have anticipated. Not bad for this quick little project.